


Descending From Above

by hanna_0607



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: ... I think..., Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Characters slightly OOC, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death (the Echo flowers), Minor swearing (Undyne), Nice!Flowey, Psycho Echo flowers, Should this be labled as angst?, though that's a later chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-18 12:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5927824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanna_0607/pseuds/hanna_0607
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of the monsters have been freed from the Underground. All except one. After six months, Frisk goes back down to the Underground to retrieve Flowey, though, upon trying to climb back to the Surface, the ladder falls, trapping both Frisk and Flowey in the Underground. Their only option of getting out is going the long way, to where the barrier fell. Though, after a few things go wrong, a darker plan begins unraveling around them and, unfortunately, they are a part of that plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One: The Ladder that Fell

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Undertale, Undertale belongs to Tobyfox. This convoluted (not really) plot bunny belongs to my own messed up brain. The characters are not mine, they belong to Tobyfox, though I do apologize for not writing them completely in character.

Frisk walked up to the hole that lead to the Underground. It was still here even after the barrier had been dispelled and all the monsters freed. All except one from what Frisk could tell. He took a deep breath and remembered all the horrors that he experienced down in the Underground with that one monster that he had not yet seen emerge from the Underground. He remembered the pain of being killed, only to be revived and to be killed again, he remembered what that monster did to his friends, that one monster. Flowey.  
  


Frisk wasn't too keen on Flowey, though he knew that Flowey was probably not enjoying the empty Underground as he first thought he was going to. Having the entire place to himself, playing God, being all alone, not moving from the one spot that Frisk had first seen him in.  
  


Taking a deep breath, Frisk dropped a long, rope ladder into the hole and secured it with a couple of rocks. Toriel had told him that he probably shouldn't do this, though she understood that Frisk didn't want Flowey to be alone forever, even if they weren't the best of friends.  
  


Checking to make sure that he had both the flower-pot and the small shovel, Frisk started descending the rope ladder into the Underground that had been free of monsters for the past six months.  
  
{***}  
  


Frisk finally had his feet on solid ground after what seemed like hours descending down the rope ladder. He wondered how he survived the fall six months ago but decided not to worry about that too much and just find Flowey. He proved quite easy to find because he was in the same spot he was in when Frisk first fell down to the Underground, though things were different.  
  


When Frisk first met Flowey, Flowey had on a friendly grin, offering him "Friendliness Pellets" that would be helpful to him, before turning into a crazy, psychotic, killer-plant and telling Frisk that it was "kill or be killed" in the Underground. Frisk was expecting to see something similar to that power-hungry flower that everyone left here six months ago. Instead, Frisk was greeted with a drooping Flowey, a sad, utterly depressed version of the flower Frisk once knew.  
  


"Flowey?" Frisk asked slowly walking up to Flowey, scared that he would suddenly spring up and strangle him. Instead, Flowey just slowly looked up, his eyes wet with tears and mouth trembling.  
  


"A-are you real?" Flowey asked in a small voice filled with despair and loneliness.  
  


Frisk nodded and continued to slowly walk up to the flower. "He must be putting on an act, he doesn't actually have feelings." He thought, though Frisk knew that the thought in his head probably wasn't true.  
  


Frisk was beside Flowey now, and Flowey was just watching him with his sad, desperate eyes. Frisk knelt beside Flowey and took the flower-pot and small shovel out of his backpack and set them down beside Flowey.  
  


"W-what are you d-doing?" Flowey asked confused about this whole situation.  
  


Well, everyone else is out of the Underground and no one could recall seeing you in the past six months," Frisk started explaining making a small hole around Flowey with the small shovel, "so everyone concluded that you were still in the Underground. I thought that you'd probably get sick of being alone for the rest of your life here, so I came to bring you to the Surface."  
  


Flowey nodded in understanding as Frisk carefully dug him and his roots out of the ground. Frisk didn't fully understand what lead him to wanting to do this, but it just happend.  
  


After a few moments of digging, Flowey and his roots were finally free of the ground that they had been trapped in for the past six months. Frisk put Flowey to one side of the hole while he dug some dirt into the flower-pot, making sure to leave a hole big enough for Flowey to fit into.  
  


"You're not going to leave me here, are you?" Flowey asked while Frisk was adjusting the amount of dirt in the pot.  
  


Frisk shook his head, "No, I came down here to get you, why would I leave you?" Frisk stopped adjusting the amount of dirt in the pot and picked Flowey up and held him at eye level. "No matter what you do, no matter what you did, you're a someone, same as everyone else that was here in the Underground that is now on the Surface. You deserve to be up there as much as everyone else."  
  


Flowey nodded again, deciding to ask no more questions as to not anger Frisk enough into actually leaving Flowey down here, alone. Frisk carefully lowered Flowey into the flower-pot and covered up any spots that needed to be covered in dirt.  
  


Flowey was in a fragile state, that much Frisk could tell about him, though Frisk knew little to nothing about being alone, in the same place, not being able to move, for six months. Paranoia?  
  


"We're off." Frisk declared after he had securely placed Flowey and his flower-pot into the backpack, but making sure that Flowey was sticking out of it.  
  


"Thank you for coming and getting me." Flowey said. Frisk smiled. Maybe Flowey and him could be friends after all that's happend. Frisk was friends with Undyne after all. Saying nothing back, Frisk walked towards the rope ladder that he had came to the Underground by.  
  


"It's a long way up." Flowey commented looking at the small piece of light that was shining from the top of the hole.  
  


"Yeah, it's going to take a while, so please don't squirm or we may fall." Frisk said in a neutral tone. He felt Flowey nod, obviously wanting to get out of the Underground pretty badly.  
  


Frisk placed a hand on one of the rungs and tested it. The ladder held.  
  


"Up we go." Frisk said and started climbing, though he didn't get too far. As he placed his foot on the first rung, he felt the ladder go slack.  
  


"Get out of the way!" Flowey yelled and Frisk ran out of the way from the ladder falling from the Surface above. The rope ladder landed with a loud THUD as the easy way back up to the Surface was now gone. Frisk and Flowey were now trapped in the Underground, with only the long way as an option to get out.


	2. Chapter Two: Frisk Went Where?!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Undyne was wondering why Frisk was late to their cooking lesson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Undertale, Undertale belongs to Tobyfox.

Frisk wasn't too thrilled with the proposed idea of going the long way to get out of the Underground. He had tried to throw the ladder back up, though that was a complete failure. He tried climbing one of the many vines around the hole but found that they were riddled with thorns.  
  


"We're just going to have to go the long way." Frisk finally said aloud. Flowey had probably already came to that conclusion a long time ago and was just keeping quiet.  
  


"Off we go then." Frisk declared and started walking up to the only exit in the room currently available, the door to the Ruins.  
  
{***}  
  


Undyne knocked on the door to the house that Frisk shared with both Toriel and Asgore. She tapped her foot impatiently as she waited. Frisk was supposed to have been at her house an hour ago for a cooking lesson where their goal was to try and not burn down Undyne's house for the umpteenth time. Asgore finally opened the door, returning from the back of the house from tending his flower garden.  
  


"Hello, Undyne." he said with a bit of shock. Undyne wasn't surprised, it wasn't everyday that she graced this house with her presence.  
  


"Where's Frisk?" she asked, straight and to the point. She noticed that she was still lightly tapping her foot and she stopped immediately.  
  


"Toriel said that he was going to the Underground for some reason." Asgore said scratching his head. "Would you like to come in for some tea?"  
  


"Frisk went back to the Underground?!" Undyne asked angrily. Her bestie had gone to the Underground for no reason and didn't tell her about it first? "I'm going to get Papyrus!" Undyne said and stormed off.  
  


"Is that a yes for tea?" Asgore asked just as she was getting out of earshot. Undyne didn't answer even though she heard. Her storming got faster, and faster, and soon she was running.  
  


"Papyrus!!!!" Undyne yelled as she rammed on Papyrus' door. She knew that Sans wouldn't answer, even though him and Papyrus shared the place, Sans was probably out at the joke club or something. She knew that Papyrus was home for two reasons. One, because he said that he was working on a new recipe for spaghetti sauce, and two, she saw him when she broke down his door to enter his house.  
  


"Papyrus!" Undyne yelled again. Papyrus, who was stirring something on the stove at the time, jumped and spilled said sauce everywhere.  
  


"Undyne!" Papyrus yelled back but with a more friendlier tone than Undyne was using. "What a pleasant surprise." Papyrus took off his apron and put it on a nearby chair.  
  


"Surprise?! Are you deaf you ignorant skeleton?!" Undyne shouted at him.  
  


"You were knocking?"  
  


_"UGH!!!!" _Undyne summoned a spear and shot it so it stuck in the wall a centimetre from the skeleton. "This is serious Papyrus!"__  
  


"What's serious?"  
  


"Frisk went back to the Underground to do something. Asgore wasn't too sure what." Undyne said, calming down a bit to a point of which she didn't want Papyrus' house to spontneously combust.  
  


"What?!" Papyrus exclaimed rushing up to Undyne. "Say that again, just to make sure that I heard you correctly. I really hope that I didn't hear you correctly."  
  


Undyne took a deep breath and repeated what she had said before. She then said why she was worried because of the cooking lesson and Frisk not coming for over an hour. By the time she had stopped talking and looked at the skeleton, she realised that he wasn't standing in front of her like he was when she first started talking. Undyne turned and saw that the front door was open, in spit of the large, Undyne sized hole in the middle of it, with a note in Papyrus' writing.  
  


_"Gone to the Underground entrance to see if I can find Frisk. Join me when you've stopped babbling. -Papyrus." ___  
  


"You..." Undyne didn't finish her threat but instead jumped through the hole that she made in the door earlier and rushed to find that blasted skeleton. She did find him at the entrance to the Underground, looking angrily at a group of humans just outside the entrance. He seemed to be lecturing them about something but they kept laughing.  
  


"Papyrus." Undyne said walking behind the skeleton and in front of the kids. "What happend?"  
  


"We only did it as a joke." one of the humans said with a smirk.  
  


"A joke? You call this a joke?" Papyrus yelled at them. The humans started laughing at them, but they didn't laugh for long, Undyne got angry.  
  


"What happend?" she asked Papyrus. She felt herself oozing with anger, a very scary presence, but one that didn't work on Frisk. It worked on the humans in front of her, they shut their mouths instantly.  
  


Papyrus started explaining, though Undyne couldn't understand half of it since the skeleton was babbling like Undyne had been doing a few minutes ago. _"Now I see why he just left the house." _Undyne thought to herself.__  
  


"...and so I went into the cave and I saw these humans just outside, and they were snickering like they did something that they shouldn't have, so I interrogated them."  
  


"Get to the point Papyrus!!!" Undyne wanted to slap the skeleton.  
  


"Frisk had climbed down to the Underground on a ladder. These humans found the ladder and pushed it over the edge and into the Underground." Papyrus finally finished. "Wait, what you're saying is..." Undyne didn't want to finish that sentence.  
  


Papyrus gulped before finishing his, "Frisk is stuck in the Underground."


	3. Chapter Three: Down We Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rescue operation starts!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Undertale, Undertale belongs to Tobyfox.

Undyne wanted to punch the humans until they bled. It was their fault that Frisk was now trapped in the Underground with the dangerous, psychopathic Flowey. Papyrus tried to calm Undyne down, though that wasn't working out too well since he himself wanted to unleash an attack of epic proportions on the humans.  
  


"I have an idea." Papyrus said after a minute or so of trying to hold Undyne back from beating the humans to the brink of death or beyond. That sentance caught Undyne's attention and she stopped trying to break free of Papyrus' grasp.  
  


"What's your idea?" she asked not tearing her glare away from the humans in front of her.  
  


"Let's get a rope or something and go down into the Underground and rescue Frisk!" Papyrus said in his I-thought-of-an-idea-that-was-good-before-you voice. Undyne looked at Papyrus. "Sounds like a plan." she said before turning back to the humans and landing a spear 5cm in front of one of them. This scared them into running away and probably never going near Undyne again.  
  


An hour later, Papyrus and Undyne had everything that they deemed that they needed. They had a rope, a medical kit with bandages and antiseptic, and a backup rope. They both wanted to get into the Underground as soon as possible and rescue Frisk from, what was probably, certain death.  
  


Flowey was a murderous, psychotic, power-hungry flower that almost killed everyone six months ago. It had been decided by a vote of everyone in the Underground (excluding Flowey) to take or leave the dangerous flower. Everyone had voted leave except for Frisk who voted take.   
  


Undyne and Papyrus started sliding down the rope and into the Underground. They hoped that Frisk hadn't gone too far, but if he had gone far, they hoped that it wasn't further than Snowdin.  
  
{***}  
  


Frisk and Flowey walked into the long hallway in the Ruins. They had learned the hard way that the puzzles were no longer active by Frisk almost getting his foot impaled by the large rectangle of spikes on the floor in the other room. Frisk noticed something immediately after walking into the long hallway, there were Echo flowers lining the hallway. Frisk was sure that six months ago, there were only Echo flowers in Waterfall.  
  


Frisk decided to question Flowey about them. "Did you do this Flowey?" Frisk asked turning his head slightly so he could sort of see the flower behind him.  
  


"No." Flowey answered. His voice said that he was just as confused to what they flowers were doing here as Frisk was.  
  


Frisk walked up to one of the flowers and looked at it closely. He was startled and jumped back when the flower sprung up, detaching its roots from the ground and walking around on said roots.  
  


The Echo flower then started doing something else that Echo flowers weren't supposed to do, it attacked. Frisk started complimenting the flower, saying that it's petals looked more blue today. Nothing happend, the flower said nothing, it just attacked. Frisk dodged roots as they were whipped at him, thankfully, he hadn't forgotten how to dodge in the six months he was away from the Underground. If he had, him and Flowey would've been mince meat by the time the Echo flower finished attacking.  
  


Frisk tried something else, he tried flirting with the Echo flower. Again nothing happened and Frisk had to frantically dodge more roots. Talking did nothing, offering to cook some spaghetti did nothing, Frisk couldn't run away, the flower caught him again and started attacking. Frisk had tried everything, but nothing worked. He had tried every "attack" move that he had, none of them worked.  
  


Standing in a corner, the Echo flower started attacking. Roots were flying everywhere and Frisk only managed to dodge a couple. Frisk was hit with quite few roots, sapping his strength and making him feel slower. The flower finished attacking and now it was Frisk's turn to attack. He didn't know what to do, all of his "attacks" were useless. Suddenly, the Echo flower before him was split in two by what looked like green vines. The Echo flower fell and beside it appeared 7G and Frisk saw a faint glow on one of the leaves of one of the vines that was retracting behind him.  
  


Frisk turned and saw Flowey with a look on his face that seemed like he regretted something that he needed to do. Flowey looked down at one of his leaves. There was a mark on there that read "24Exp" and under that "Lv1." A few seconds later, the 7G disappeared and a mark that read "7G" appeared on the same leaf.  
  


Flowey had just killed the Echo flower. Frisk felt a twinge of guilt as he felt like if he just tried harder, if he was more determined, then he could have saved that Echo flower, he could have spared it.  
  


"Are those... Wires?" Flowey asked snapping Frisk from his guilt back to reality.  
  


"Wires?" Frisk asked.  
  


"There." Flowey said. Frisk then saw what Flowey was talking about. Carefully, as to not anger any of the other Echo flowers in the room, Frisk walked up to the dead Echo flower and inspected it.  
  


Flowey was right, there were various coloured wires protruding from the steam of the Echo flower. Metal patches showed on both the petals and roots. Wires were also protruding out of the roots that Flowey had severed. The Echo flower looked more like a robot than a flower.  
  


"Let's get out of here." Frisk said standing up, still looking at the flower lying still on the floor.  
  


"That's a good idea. The puzzles aren't active so we may be able to just run through the Ruins." Flowey said. Frisk started running. He sped from room to room. Echo flowers attacked nearly every ten steps. Frisk found that the only puzzles that were still active were the ones where he fell down into a lower part of the Ruins, and had to exit a door on the other side, or he fell down and saw what route he had to take on the floor above. Flowey saved Frisk's life countless times from the Echo flowers. His Exp and Lv kept increasing, as well as his G. By the time Toriel's old house was in sight, Flowey was at Lv6.  
  


Frisk ran inside the house and quickly closed the door before collapsing against it to catch his breath. Thankfully he was leaning on his side and not his back or else Flowey would have probably been crushed.  
  


"You killed all those flowers." Frisk stated, feelings of guilt crashed against him as he remembered the flowers. Some had been robotic like the first Echo flower they encountered, but some had been in various states of decay and some seemed like they had been fused together. Frisk started freaking out so to speak. He started saying that this was all his fault, that is he tried harder he could've saved the flowers, etc. etc. Flowey was having none of it and ended up slapping Frisk to get him to stop.  
  


"Frisk, those flowers were attacking to kill!" Flowey stated as soon as Frisk shut up. "They wanted to kill you, like me when we first met. No matter how hard you tried, no matter how much determination you have, you would've died if you kept 'acting' instead of 'fighting."  
  


Frisk took Flowey out of his backpack and setting him on the floor in front of him. "I... I don't think that I'd be able to execute any other flowers." he said in a small voice. Flowey sighed. "Frisk." he said. "This Underground is different from the one that you fell into six months back. Remember what I said then? 'Down here, it's kill or be killed.' That wasn't true then, but it's true now."  
  


Frisk looked at him, seeming to not understand.  
  


Flowey restated, "Frisk, a Pacifist run of this Underground is not possible."


	4. Chapter Four: Searching for Frisk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Papyrus and Undyne search for Frisk, but find someone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Undertale, Tobyfox does.

"Frisk!" Undyne called once her and the spaghetti-obsessed skeleton entered the Ruins. She was surprised to see them being mostly the same as they were before the barrier had been broken six months back. Everything was just covered in a layer of dust that seemed to be like snow, you step in it and you leave a footprint. Winter was always the worst to play hide-and-go-seek, everyone would always find you because of your... footprints...  
  


"Footprints!!!" Undyne exclaimed and started looking around like Doggo when he thought he saw something move.  
  


"What?" Papyrus exclaimed almost jumping out of his skin (not that he had any skin to jump out of).  
  


"This place is dusty, is Frisk went through here, we'd be able to see his... There!!" she pointed to small, child-like footprints that went along the edge of the room they were in and up the stairs. It seemed that the person that had made them had been going at a casual walking pace and not sprinting for their lives from an evil, demonic, psychopathic, power-hungry, nefarious, destructive, wicked, vicious, bloodthirsty, murderous, heartless, barbaric, merciless...  
  


"I found my shortcut!" Papyrus exclaimed with glee as he stopped shifting through the pile of red flowers that was between the stairs.  
  


"And I found Frisk's footprints, which we should follow." Undyne stated before walking along the footprints that would eventually lead her to Frisk.  
  


"We should use my shortcut." Papyrus said, stopping Undyne in her tracks.  
  


"Why?" she asked giving the skeleton a sideways glance.  
  


"Well, if I were Frisk, which I'm not..."  
  


"I can see that."  
  


"...I would want to get out of this place A.S.A.P."  
  


"Your point?" Undyne was looking directly at Papyrus, arms crossed and resisiting the urge to tap her foot. This skeleton always had to beat around the bush and never say things straight.  
  


"He's probably already in Snowdin right now." Papyrus actually got to his point and it didn't take him three hours to do so.  
  
Undyne practically launched herself off the stairs and next to Papyrus, "So what are we waiting for?! Let's go already! Frisk's probably halfway to Waterfall by now!"  
  


"O-okay." Papyrus stammered and opened up a hatch.  
  


Undyne was a good ten metres down the ladder that lead down into the darkness, "Hurry up slow bones!" she looked up and yelled. Undyne then heard Papyrus say something about 'stupid skeleton puns' before climbing down the ladder himself and following Undyne through his shortcut to Snowdin.  
  


{***}  
  


"So why did you make this shortcut in the first place?" Undyne asked.  
  


"So I wouldn't have to go through Toriel's old house to get to the Ruins to see if there were any humans there for me to catch and bring to Asgore so I could become a member of the Royal Guard and..."  
  


"You're rambling."  
  


"Sorry."  
  


"Wait, if you made this shortcut to get humans, why didn't you get Frisk when he first fell down here?"  
  


[Somewhere in Toriel's old house, Frisk sneezed]  
  


"I was creating new puzzles."  
  


"You were trying to make spaghetti weren't you?"  
  


"..."  
  


"..."  
  


"...no."  
  


{***}  
  


"Why are there so many puzzles?!" Undyne burst out into anger summoning a spear and impaling a nearby tree with it. "Any why do they all have to do with turning O's into X's?!" she kicked the tree she had impaled with her spear and the tree toppled over, almost crushing Papyrus who was (stupidly) standing close to Undyne as she raged.  
  


"These are good quality puzzles!" Papyrus defended after he had yelped and side-stepped the tree that had almost crushed him.  
  


"Why are they still active?"  
  


"B-because... they still are that's why."  
  


Undyne groaned and face-palmed. This was going to take a lot longer than she thought. For the next hour, her and Papyrus stumbled through the puzzles that Papyrus himself had made. The thought never crossed their minds to look at the lack of Frisk footprints in the snow, or at the footprints in the snow that were much larger and more spaced apart than the ones that Undyne had found in the Ruins.  
  


{***}  
  


"Snowdin! At last!" Undyne exclaimed with joy, wanting to kiss the ground, though refraining from doing so since A) it was the ground, and B) all the snow was trampled and mixed with dirt and germs. Undyne did not want to get si.. wait trampled?  
  


"Why is the snow trampled?" Undyne asked Papyrus who had a look of 'I'm thinking!' on his face.  
  


"I was about to ask you that question."  
  


"Why would I know the answer to that question?"  
  


"Why would I know the answer to that question?"  
  


Undyne crossed her arms, "Touché." she said. She then suggested that they start looking through the houses in Snowdin, just in case Frisk was hiding somewhere from the murderous, psychotic, feral, malicious... don't even get her started.  
  


They started with the shop and the inn. While the shop had nothing that they could vouch for as 'hey-Frisk-might-have-been-here'-like, except for some of the missing health restorers. While the shop offered next to nothing, the inn held something interesting.  
  


"Undyne! Undyne, I think I found something!" Papyrus called from one of the inn's rooms. Undyne, who had been ransacking one of the other ones a door or two down from Papyrus, sprinted out the door and found Papyrus.  
  


"Did you find Frisk?" she asked enthusiastically.  
  


"I said I found something, not that I found Frisk." Papyrus stated.  
  


"Well what did you find that would be more worthy of calling me from the other room than finding Frisk?" Undyne asked, crossing her arms for what felt like the millionth time since both her and the skeleton stepped foot in the Underground.  
  


"You must be blind." Papyrus said.  
  


"What did you call me you..."  
  


"Just look." Papyrus said and stepped back so that his back was against the wall of the room and Undyne saw what he was talking about. The room looked lived in. The blankets had wrinkles in them and the pillows looked flat and one had a head implant on it which, in estimation, looked bigger than Frisk's head. The trash can was overflowing of crumbled up paper that looked like it had been written on. Undyne went over to the trash can and picked up one of the papers and uncrumpled it.  
  


"Anything interesting?" Papyrus asked looking over Undyne's shoulder at the piece of paper. Said paper was full of illegible writing and diagrams of what looked like Echo flowers. Arrows were pointing to various points on the flower with more illegible writing probably saying what that part was.  
  


"Someone must've been staying here when the barrier went down. It looks like they were studying the Echo flowers.. for some reason." Undyne said crumpling up the paper again and throwing it back into the trash can, assuming that the rest of the papers were just like the one she looked at.   
  


Next they looked in Grillby's, hoping for some sign that their little human friend (which both Undyne and Papyrus kept arguing about who was Frisk's bestie). This time, Undyne was the one that found something interesting. Some of the food that Grillby's always kept in stock (for one reason or another) was severely depleted. It wasn't like Grillby's to have only a half-stock of something, though most of the food was severely under half, like someone had been cooking food for the past several months.  
  


{***}  
  


After what seemed like hours of searching through Papyrus' old house to find any small trace that Frisk had been there, they ended up with nothing other than the inn and Grillby's.  
  


"Maybe he's still in the Ruins." Undyne said flopping down on the couch.  
  


"I highly doubt it, isn't that where Flowey was last time everyone saw him? Frisk probably booked it to Snowdin and he just passed through here without stopping to pick anything up." Papyrus said.  
  


"Why would he come back to the Underground?" Undyne pondered to herself.  
  


"You're only now asking yourself that question?" Papyrus asked her, sitting down on the couch.  
  


"No.." Undyne said looking away from the skeleton.  
  


Papyrus gave her a look that said 'I don't believe you' and when Undyne turned to look back at him, she threw up her arms in defeat.  
  


"Okay! Yes! I'm only now asking myself that question because I was so focused on getting to Frisk and making sure that he's not dead because of that flower." Undyne spat out at him. She turned to look away from him and out the front door which was open. Funny, she thought that they closed that after they entered the building.  
  


Undyne got up off the couch and made her way over to the door to close it when she noticed movement. Someone had been standing off to the side of the doorframe and had ran off. Undyne ran after them.  
  


"Where are you going?" Papyrus asked lightly jogging after Undyne. He never got his answer because when he got out the door and looked to where Undyne was running, he stopped short in his tracks.  
  


"Undyne stop!" Papyrus yelled and Undyne, having no reason for listening to the skeleton, stopped anyway.  
  


"What?" Undyne looked back.  
  


Papyrus caught a glimpse of their face before they vanished in a puff of black mist. A hollow face of bone, what seemed like cracks protruded from either eye socket, one travelling up to their forehead and one down past their cheek. They muttered something unintelligible before vanishing.  
  


Papyrus managed to choke out a singular word, memories he had long since buried were rising to the surface again. "Dad." he said.  



	5. Chapter Five: Equipped With A Frying Pan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Undertale, Undertale belongs to Tobyfox.

It was only when Flowey had gotten Frisk to calm down and equipped him with a frying pan from Toriel's old kitchen that they finally started heading out to Snowdin. The long hallway was uneventful, nothing popped out and scared them, no psycho Echo flower attacked them, nothing. Flowey felt uneasy about that fact.  
  
Frisk hesitated for a moment at the doorway that lead out of the Ruins. "He must be scared of running into the Echo flowers." Flowey thought. "That and killing them." Frisk suddenly moving shook Flowey out of his thoughts. Literally shook, Frisk was running.  
  
"Why are you running?" Flowey asked turning around to see what was behind them. He didn't need Frisk to answer that question. There were flowers, probably twice as many as Flowey had killed before, running down the hallway and towards them at full speed.  
  
Flowey could feel fear oozing from Frisk as he ran through the snowy backdrop before Snowdin. Neither of them noticed, or cared, that the puzzles were finished instead of deactivated like they had been in the Ruins. The flowers stopped chasing them after a while, though Frisk didn't stop running until they were in Snowdin, safely in the 'LIBRARBY.'  
  
This was the second time in, maybe, half an hour that Flowey had to calm Frisk down. He was visibly calming down, and looking more and more tired. Flowey decided that now would probably be a good time to take a rest. Not like the one that they took back in Toriel's old house, Flowey was thinking more along the lines of a couple hours.  
  
{***}  
  
Frisk had fallen asleep a couple minutes after he calmed down, and Flowey, not really needing sleep, was left to his thoughts. At first, his mind was jumbled, not really knowing what to think. His thoughts kept jumping from the events that had transpired after the ladder fell, to why Frisk had come back down to the Underground just to get him.  
  
The more Flowey's thoughts jumped between the two, the more suspicious the latter seemed. Flowey had done so many horrible things to Frisk, almost killing him, stalking him like the creepy flower he was. Was. Had he really changed?  
  
He hadn't put on an act to get sympathy when Frisk first came down the ladder, he was actually wondering if Frisk was real since he had been seeing... things. Well, more like a thing that always vanished into a black mist before Flowey got a good look at the... thing.  
  
Maybe Frisk had gone back to the Underground so that when he brought Flowey back up to the Surface, the other humans could perform tests on him. That had to be the reason. The other humans didn't want to live with the other monsters, but Frisk struck a deal with someone that he would bring them a psychotic flower to test on if the rest of the monsters would be able to live in peace.  
  
_"You know that Frisk wouldn't do that."_ the sane side of his brain said. _"Frisk is too nice."_  
  
_"Yeah, this Frisk. Another one actively killed everyone in the Underground."_  
  
_"But as you said, this Frisk is nice."_  
  
_"For now."_  
  
And it was settled, Flowey had officially gone crazy.  
  
{***}  
  
Frisk woke up to the sound of many whispers, none of which sounded like Flowey. He couldn't make out what they were saying, they were speaking too fast and in hushed voices. He looked beside him and saw Flowey, who looked about ready to kill something.  
  
"What are those voices?" Frisk whispered.  
  
"The Echo flowers." Flowey answered, unmoving. "They're all over Snowdin from what I can see."  
  
"How did they find us?" Frisk asked, fear clawing at him with each breath. He didn't want to kill anyone or anything, even if if they were trying to kill him.  
  
Flowey gave him a look of disbelief, "The Underground is pretty much a linear pathway from one end to the other. I would guess that they just walked the only way that they could go." he said. Was that a hint of anger in his voice?  
  
"So," Frisk said ignoring the tone in Flowey's voice. "what do we do?"  
  
"I gave you that frying pan for a reason." Flowey said. He opened the door of the 'LIBRARBY,' alerting all of the Echo flowers in the area to their location.  
"Why'd you do that?"  
  
"It's like I said before," Flowey turned and gave Frisk a stern look, "it's kill or be killed."  
  
{***}  
  
Gaster popped away as soon as he saw that the angry fish-lady had stopped chasing him. He was back in the True Lab in a second, the bright light, trampled snow, and cold feeling was replaced with dim lights, metal floors, and a guilty feeling.  
  
His son was down here with the things that he made of the Echo flowers. He was endangering his own son, but then again, he hadn't planned on Papyrus being down in the Underground to begin with, Gaster did see him leave six months ago.  
  
Gaster turned when he heard a sound behind him. An Echo flower that was decaying was sneaking up on him, though not very well as a piece of metal that had gotten snagged on it was scratching against the floor as it moved. Gaster summoned a ball of green flame and threw it at the flower, instantly killing it. He looked at his arm when the EXP registered, LV76. How many of those things had he killed? Their numbers seemed to keep growing every time he encountered them, no matter how many had died by his hand.  
  
Suddenly, there was another sound. Gaster looked from his arm to the flower he just killed. It looked like the corpse was splitting in two and a couple seconds later, two Echo flowers were standing in front of him. Gaster startled back in surprise, summoning more green flame and killing the flowers in front of him.  
  
Something in his head clicked. That explained everything, why none of the flowers were going away and they seemed to be multiplying. It was like the human myth of the Hydre, when you cut off one of it's tails, two grow back. No, that wasn't how that went. Gaster shook that thought out of his head and ran to his testing area. He had to figure out how to reverse what he did to the Echo flowers. He had to figure out how to get that DETERMINATION out of them before they went after his son.


	6. Chapter Six: Making an Appearence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Undertale, Undertale belongs to Tobyfox!

Echo flowers lay everywhere as Frisk clutched the frying pan that he had been using to defend himself, his knuckles were white. His face was pretty white as well as he heard the tell-tale sound of Lv-ing up. He glanced down at his arm and moved his shirt up a bit to revel the mark of Lv3. Frisk didn't know why he fought the way he did, he had been reluctant to whack the first Echo flower, but after that one went down, all the other Echo flowers that he hit, he was less reluctant, less hesitant. It was almost like something had taken over him and did the fighting for him.  
  
Flowey seemed happy about the whole thing. When Frisk had looked over at Flowey after he had whacked the first Echo flower, Flowey seemed to be giving Frisk a sideways glance as a mischievous smile tugged at his lips.  
  
_"I see that you finally want my help you_ Pacifist." a voice spat, seemingly coming from out of nowhere a couple Echo flowers into the battle. The voice caught Frisk off guard and almost got him killed, but his arm seemed to move on it's own to decapitate the Echo flower that had launched itself at Frisk from behind.  
  
"Who are you? Am I hallucinating?" Frisk asked aloud to the voice, though if there were any onlookers, it would have seemed that he asked the question to no one in particular.  
  
_"Me? I'm your other half, I guess you could say."_ the voice said a bit more gentle and with a bit less venom than when they first spoke.  
  
"But who are you?" Frisk asked, another Echo flower got decaptiated without his attention. Piles of Echo flowers were everywhere, but more just seemed to appear out of nowhere.  
  
_"Listen Pacifist, I'm not here to chat, you're still in control. Well, sort of. You're still this body's main host, in this run any-who. But don't worry Pacifist, I'll gain control sooner or later with how this is turning out."_ the voice said, then went silent. Frisk's arms and legs moved on their own, probably controlled by whomever owned that voice. Frisk had tried talking to the voice again, but they refused to answer.  
  
Frisk kept getting glances at Flowey who had a very large smile plastered on his face that didn't seem like it was going anywhere. That smile worried Frisk, it was like the smile that Flowey had worn when Frisk first fell down and into the Underground, though wider and less fake. Less friendly and more menacing, a smile that said "I'm planning something that involves you, and you're playing right into the palm of my hand." Frisk didn't like that smile.  
  
Frisk also kept seeing bright yellow flashes in the corner of his vision, but whatever had flashed had vanished when Frisk tried to see what it was. He got a glance at one time and read the word: Save.  
  
The Echo flowers lay in piles around Frisk as he clutched the frying pan, his knuckles white. He looked away from his arm and at Flowey who was closely inspecting one Echo flower that seemed to be twitching.  
  
"We should probably get going." Flowey said. He was no longer in his flower pot, but he was walking, two vines serving as legs while the others served as weapons. Things weren't adding up in Frisk's mind, though he decided not to dwell on them as the Echo flower that was twitching got up and went off somewhere, probably to find it's head or something.  
  
Frisk had started running out of Snowdin and towards Waterfall without Flowey when the decapitated Echo flower got up and moved.  
  
"Frisk! Wait! Hold up!" Frisk heard Flowey call from behind him. Frisk stopped and turned around at the entrance to Waterfall. When he turned, he saw Papyrus and Undyne chasing Flowey, rage in their eyes, weapons in hand.  
  
"Undyne! Papyrus!" Frisk yelled and ran up to them, Flowey hiding behind Frisk when he got close. The skeleton and the angry fish-lady stopped in their tracks and stared at Frisk with round eyes.  
  
"Frisk!!" Papyrus yelped and picked him up, giving Frisk a large skeleton-hug. Undyne joined in while Flowey just looked at them awkwardly.  
  
"You had us worried sick!" Undyne said breaking away from the hug and smacking Frisk lightly on the top of his head.  
  
"Sorry." Frisk said, it was the only thing that he could think of to say. He had scared them by leaving with no explanation to rescue Flowey. He knew that both Undyne and Papyrus weren't too fond of Flowey, they still thought of him as a murderous flower, probably.  
  
"Why did you come down here in the first place?" Undyne asked taking an angry glance at Flowey.  
  
"Well, Flowey was left down here all alone so I thought that I come down here to take him up to the Surface so he wouldn't be lonely, so he'd be able to be with everyone." Frisk explained. He hoped that Undyne and Papyrus wouldn't start attacking Flowey out of sheer rage.  
  
"Why didn't you tell anyone?!"  
  
"I told Toriel and Sans."  
  
"Why didn't you tell us?"  
  
"Sans said that he'd tell you and that I should probably get going if I wanted to make it back in time before our cooking lesson." Frisk finished explaining.  
  
Undyne let out a raged yell that she had probably been holding in for quite a while now. "Do you have that piece of shit flower? We're getting out of here." Undyne said looking around, probably for the piece of shit flower she mentioned before.  
  
"Um, Undyne..." Papyrus said in a shaky voice. His back was turned from the conversation that was going on and he was looking back at Snowdin.  
  
"Did you find him?" Undyne turned to Papyrus.  
  
"I'm right here." Flowey said poking his head out from behind Frisk's legs.  
  
"There you are! Frisk! Why were you hiding him?" Undyne asked and dived for Flowey like a volleyball player would dive for a ball that could end the game and make the team loose the finals in nationals. To put in a simpler way, Undyne dived for Flowey with a murderous intent.  
  
"Undyne..." Papyrus said again, this time he started backing up, like he was going to turn and run any second.  
  
"What?" Undyne spat, looking up from her faceplant in the snow. She had missed Flowey.  
  
"Flowers... a lot of them..." Papyrus stuttered. Frisk peeked around Papryus to confirm his fears. All of the Echo flowers that they had fought earlier were up and running towards them with a vengeance. There also seemed to be more of them, though that could have just been how they had spread themselves out, and the fact that Frisk was beyond scared now.  
  
"RUN!" Undyne yelled and stood up fast. She grabbed Frisk and booked it.


	7. Chapter Seven: Things Take A Turn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Undertale, Undertale belongs to Tobyfox!

Thankfully, Frisk was able to grab Flowey before Undyne grabbed him and booked it. He didn't want to think about what would've happened if he was able to snatch Flowey up, Flowey couldn't run that fast.  
  
The four of them ran into Waterfall, the Echo flowers close on their heels. Undyne ran fast, taking all the corners sharply without losing momentum. Papyrus was struggling a little to keep up, almost falling behind and being swallowed in the mass of Echo flowers behind them. Flowey was quick though, shooting out a vine that wrapped around Papyrus' waist before easily lifting him up and setting him down right beside Undyne.  
  
Running across the first boarded walkway, Papyrus ran ahead of Undyne, exclaiming a "Follow me!" as the only explanation as to what he was doing. Undyne then followed Papyrus along the remaining length of the boarded walkway, almost falling off when a couple of Echo flowers jumped at her heels in an attempt to knock her over.  
  
Once the four of them were past the obstacles known as a boarded walkway and very tall grass, Frisk noticed a black mist swirling around the area where the mouse hole was located. Surprisingly enough, the crystalized cheese was still present, though that was not the thing that surprised Frisk the most.  
  
The black mist cleared in a sudden _whoosh_ of air, and there stood a plain white door. Papyrus, who was waiting for the mist to clear, opened the door as fast as lightning and ushered Undyne, Frisk, and Flowey inside. They didn't need to be told twice. Undyne bolted through the door, the Echo flowers a metre or so behind her. Papyrus shut the door quickly, pressed against it as he locked it. The door was then enveloped in black mist again, and it was gone as quickly as it had come.  
  
{***}  
  
Papyrus didn't know what came over him when he darted out in front of Undyne, but he had gotten a feeling, a knowing of what to do and where to go. More just along the lines of where to go, he didn't do anything but run faster to lead Undyne to where he knew the door would be. He didn't know _how_ he knew, he had walked past the crystalized cheese numerous times and didn't see black mist, but he knew that it would be there this time.  
  
Leaning his back against the wall where the door had been, Papyrus looked around the room that he had lead his friends into. The room was bright, brighter than Waterfall outside, the lilac walls were also a contrast to the darker blue that coated almost every walkable surface of the world just outside the door.  
  
"Where are we?" Undyne asked, setting down Frisk and taking a look around the room.  
  
"Another secret passageway." Papyrus said standing up and walking over to the far wall.  
  
"That's two so far." Undyne counted as she walked up behind Papyrus. Frisk put Flowey in his backpack and joined them a moment later.  
  
"These are the only two that I know about." Papyrus said, trying to figure out how to access said passageway, "I'm not too sure if there are going to be more."  
  
{***}  
  
Papyrus got the passageway open ten minutes later thanks to brute force and stupidity.  
  
Ten minutes after that, the four of them were walking through a passage that was the same lilac as the room that they had exited.  
  
After ten more minutes, they found themselves climbing out and into a dark room. Dark blue-grey pieces of metal tiled the floor, the walls the same colour as the floor, though the colours melted into each other and became lighter the further up the walls they went. A machine was at the end of the room, wires and cables connecting to it and leading from seemingly nowhere.  
  
{***}  
  
Frisk knew this room, he knew where it was located and what had happened in here. The True Lab located under Alphy's lab in the Hotlands was a sight to behold the first time he came down here.  
  
Fully climbing out of the passage, Frisk walked forward, Flowey in tow, towards the door that lead out of the room. Undyne and Papyrus followed him closely, looking around at everything.  
  
Walking into the hallway, Frisk noticed some differences. Blue papers were strung up all along the hallway, but when he walked up to one to read it he couldn't. The words, if he could even call them that, were all in strange symbols that made no sense and had seemingly no pattern. On a couple of the blue papers, drawings of the Echo flowers anatomy were amidst the writing.  
  
"That's my dad's writing." Papyrus' voice broke the ever-growing silence that seemed to envelop the place. His voice, though he spoke in a whisper, seemed as loud as a nuclear bomb drop, even their shoes didn't make as much sound as speaking did.  
  
"Your dad?" Frisk asked. He turned to see Papyrus looking at one of the blue papers that were lining the wall, Undyne nowhere to be seen, though probably further down the hall trying to find something that she could read.  
  
"Gaster, W.D. Gaster." not taking his eyes off the paper, Papyrus gave off an eeriee aura when he said his dad's name.  
  
"Didn't he fall into something?" Flowey piped up from Frisk's backpack.  
  
Papyrus nodded, "The Core, he fell into the Core. Neither his dust nor his body was ever recovered. Alphys was assigned the title of Royal Scientist a few years later..." he trailed off.  
  
From what Frisk could tell, W.D. Gaster probably started fading from everyone's memories, even though he had (supposedly) died in such a horrible way. From what Frisk could remember, there were no guard railings around the drop-offs in the Core.  
  
Undyne came back a few minutes later, silence mixed with tension plagued the air around Papyrus. Something seemed off about him, though Frisk didn't know what.  
"Guys!" Undyne said in a voice that ricocheted off every surface that was near them at that current moment. The three of them looked at her with expressions that seemed expecting.  
  
"I found something."  
  
{***}  
  
The writing was too clear. Back in Snowdin, it had been illegible scribbles across the page, but here, the writing was far too clear. Papyrus could make out ever symbol, every word, every sentence that formed on the paper in front of him, he was able to understand it all. He stood in place, staring at the paper as if his life depended on it. When he heard Undyne approaching, he turned. How was he supposed to explain this to them, then again, this was only one piece to a huge puzzle that he had yet to completely fit together, though he was starting to do so quite quickly.  
  
{***}  
  
Undyne lead Frisk, Flowey, and Papyrus down hallway after hallway, the scenery never changing until they entered the room that Undyne seemed equal parts excited and nervous about.  
  
The room itself did not differ from anything else in the True Lab, though the contents were brutal. Different parts of different Echo flowers were scattered aimlessly around the room with a neon blue sap covering a portion of the room and it's contents. Cages were stacked up against the wall, their doors ripped off their hinges, some had clattered to the floor and stayed there, someone not bothering to move them back. Three chairs were in the middle of the room, three Echo flowers were still pinned down on them, wriggling, trying to get free from the iron-grip that the straps attaching them to the chair had. The smell was terrible and stung Frisk's eyes and nostrils. The smell even tasted bad as it swirled around them, a mixture of rotten tree, sickly sweet sap, and withering plants.  
  
Frisk wanted to vomit at the sight and smell.  
  
"What is this?" Flowey asked with a cowering voice. His eyes were wide and Frisk felt him trembling.  
  
The Echo flowers responded to the sound of Flowey's voice, stopping for a second before thrashing more wildly against the bindings, attempting to get to the sound and probably snuff out it's source.  
  
Footsteps sounded behind them as they turned and saw Gaster running.  
  
"Run!" Gaster yelled before a hand shot out of nowhere and grabbed him.  
  
"Well, well, well." a new voice said, slow and menacing. "I see that you've found my experiments."  
  
No one dared speak up as the hand was suddenly connected to an arm, then to a torso, then to a body. Flowey let out a strangled cry of fear before ducking behind Frisk's head and hiding his face in his hair. Undyne, Papyrus, and Frisk stood in horror as they all instantly recognized the figure floating in front of them, holding Gaster up by the neck in spite of Gaster being mist.  
  
"Hello, Frisk." sneered the voice of Asriel Dreemur.


	8. Chapter Eight: Persona Explaining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Undertale, Undertale belongs to Tobyfox!

"So, you can speak English? Not just Webdings?" Papyrus broke the silence that had surrounded all of them, covering the air like a thick fog. Gaster said nothing, he was trying to find a way to explain this mess to them, explain why everything had ended up this way, he just couldn't find the right word combinations.  
  
Silence clung to the air around them again as Papyrus didn't push his question to be answered. They were locked in a room, curtosy of Asriel Dreemur, as they sat and waited for what was to happen. Yes, they had tried opening the door, both normally and by force, though nothing seemed to move the thing a centimetre. Gaster had tried to vanish into mist, but that also failed miserably.  
  
Gaster looked around at the people that he was locked in here with. A young boy with a flower sat in the corner, Frisk and Flowey being their names. Frisk was trying to comfort Flowey, though his efforts were in vain as the sentient flower seemed to distraught to be comforted. Gaster knew why, he had done this to him, both him and Dreemur out there doing who knows what.  
  
An angry fish-lady was standing against a wall, looking more and more irritated each passing second. Soon, she walked over to the door that wouldn't budge, summoned a blue spear out of nowhere, and started trying to stab the door through. Her attacks kept bouncing off, useless. He knew she was just trying to get rid of the anger that had built up inside her, though he didn't really know how well it was working by trying to stab a door. Undyne, an ex-member of the Royal Guard, the same Guard that his son had been trying to get into ever since Gaster could remember.  
  
His son, Papyrus, was the only one left to look at in the room. He seemed to be thinking of something, maybe something to say, how to formulate the words into a sentance that could maybe start up a conversation and clear the silence out of the room with cheerful chatter instead of a spear hitting a door.  
  
"I-I feel that I should explain this situation." Gaster finally spoke, clearing the silence, but replacing it with tension.  
  
Undyne whipped around to look at Gaster, "Yeah, an explanation, I would fucking _love_ an explanation! Explain Asriel Dreemur is out there and Flowey is in here!" Undyne snapped at him.  
  
Everyone was staring at Gaster with a look in their eyes, they really wanted to know what was going on here, and they wanted to know _now._  
  
"Okay, so, first I think that I should start by explaining the Echo flowers." Gaster started. "So, when the barrier fell, everyone left, correct?"  
  
Everyone nodded except Flowey, he was still as stone.  
  
"So, I was the only one down here, or so I thought, but at that current time, I believed that I was all alone in the Underground. I tried to leave with everyone, but it was like the barrier was still there for me, even though I could see the Surface, I couldn't get out of the Underground. I was stuck.  
  
"I wandered around the Underground for a few days, looking at things that had changed, nothing much was the answer to that question. I continued to wander and I happend to stumble upon an Echo flower." Gaster explained.  
  
"Kind of hard _not_ to stumble into one's path." Undyne muttered. She had put away her spear and was sitting against the wall next to Frisk.  
  
"Anyway, I thought that maybe I could make an Echo flower become sentient and then I would have a friend and I wouldn't be alone. So I took an Echo flower out of Waterfall and brought it to the lab that we are now in."  
  
"The True Lab?" Frisk asked.  
  
"That's what this thing's called?" Gaster asked and knocked his knuckle against the wall. "So, I brought the Echo flower back here and started searching around for things to try and make it sentient. That's when I found a couple of vials of a bright yellow liquid. The label on it read DETERMINATION in all capital letters. DETERMINATION being the thing that allows human souls to persist after death, I decided that trying to inject the Echo flower with a bit of the stuff could make it sentient, and hopefully friendly.  
  
"I didn't get my answer until a couple days after the injection. The Echo flower that I had brought in started moving on it's own, walking on roots, turning it's steam to turn it's head. It kept bumping into walls, so I decided to research the Echo flowers more and maybe try and find a way to get the flowers to have a face like Flowey over there." Gaster said and tilted his head in Flowey's direction. Flowey perked up at the mention of his name, though didn't say anything.  
  
"Stop prancing around the bush!" Undyne sneered at Gaster. Her patience was most definitely running out.  
  
Gaster decided that it would be best to try and finish up his explanation as quickly as possible before Undyne blew a fuse. "I was walking through Snowdin one day, continuing with my research, when I saw the destructive force, known as Flowey, destroying everything in his path." Gaster stopped for a minute, trying to figure out how to explain this next part.  
  
"Well?" Undyne was the only one who was having any sort of reaction to this explanation, both Frisk and Papyrus had neutral faces on, Gaster couldn't see Flowey's face, he had turned it away some time ago.  
  
"Well, somehow... somehow I knew that it wasn't Flowey that was causing that, but the bad persona that rested within him." Gaster knew he hadn't explained this well when Undyne let out a large "Huh?" that resonated off the walls. She had done a mood flip, going from I'm-ready-to-kill-someone to I-want-to-know-more-tell-me-or-I-will-kill-you. Was that normal of her?  
  
"Persona's, everyone has them, good ones and bad ones, the good persona is the one that is the most prominent in most people. When I saw Flowey going on a destructive rampage, I knew that his bad persona was in control, I had seen his good persona before, I knew that it was there, I knew that his good persona was the one that was supposed to be prominent, but for some reason, it wasn't at that current moment." Gaster said as he tried to justify what he had felt at that moment. No one was questioning him, but slightly leaning forward, itching to hear more like little children enveloped in the magic of a story that their grandfather was telling them.  
  
"So what I did was I managed to trap the destructive Flowey and put him somewhere safe while I put my Echo flower research to the side and started trying to figure out a way to separate persona's, or at least repress one. A month or two later, I finally built a machine that I hoped would work." Gaster said remembering the machine. A chair with a large metal bowl that went over the head. Many wires and tubes led from the bowl to another bowl with a chair underneath it where the bad persona would end up, if everything worked properly. A dash with different buttons and switches was situated in between to two chairs, with a few flicks and pushes here and there and the two persona's would separate.  
  
"I put Flowey into the machine, restrained him, and turned the machine on. Some whirring, buzzing, and a bit of screaming later, I had successfully separated the two persona's into Asriel and Asriel Dreemur."  
  
"So you just let Dreemur run rampant?" Papyrus asked.  
  
"No, I tried to throw him into the Core where I had fallen in, but I guess that he's not limited to floating." Gaster said. "I had just thrown in him and then returned here to see Asriel. I wanted to take care of him, I thought that if I could make friends with Asriel, I wouldn't have to continue injecting Echo flowers with DETERMINATION." Gaster stopped talking.  
  
"I left." Flowey said, slowly and quietly, he was barely audible. "I knew that I had to get out of there while I wasn't a flower. I knew that this place was dangerous, I was... I was scared." Everyone's attention was trained on Flowey as he kept talking. He had ran away from the True Lab, through the Hotlands, through Waterfall, through Snowdin, through the Ruins. He ran until he blinked and he found himself as a flower again, rooted in the place that Frisk had first found him.  
  
"After a day or so of searching, I found him, but he wouldn't let me near him, so I just went back to the lab, deciding that continuing my Echo flower research would be for the best." all eyes were on his as he talked, his voice low and raspy as words kept tumbling out of his mouth. "What I found was that the Echo flower that I had injected DETERMINATION into was nowhere to be seen. I thought that maybe it had run off and I gave up on looking for it after I searched through the entire Underground for it. I just went back to the lab with another Echo flower and injected it with DETERMINATION, hoping to get the same results.  
  
"Whenever I left the lab to do anything, the Echo flowers would always vanish without a trace and I wouldn't be able to find them anywhere, so I would just bring another one in and inject it with DETERMINATION while trying to figure out the mystery.  
  
"One day I left my lab and came back only to find a mob of Echo flowers in the lab, morphing with each other, decaying, or trying to become one with a machine. They all started attacking at once, so I summoned some of my green fire and threw it at them and ran. They kept chasing me, more seemed to have popped up though I had no idea where they were coming from. I killed as many as I could, raising my Level of Violence the entire time, getting Execution Point after Execution Point until I thought that they were all dead." Gaster relived the memory, they were coming from everywhere, attacking him without rest and multiplying the entire time. He understood now that whenever one was killed, two sprang from it's corpse, though he still didn't have any idea how that happened.  
  
"But they weren't all dead, were they?" Asriel Dreemur floated into the room, leaving the door open behind him as he stood in the doorway, as if daring them to try and leave.  
  
"I might as well tell you the reasoning behind that phenomenon, it's a simple one really. Separating the persona's in Echo flowers is quite simple, just add another injection of DETERMINATION to the 'bad persona' and you have yourself a killing machine." Dreemur explained, his mouth playing at a smirk, like this was all child's play. "I hadn't expected them to multiply like they did, but that worked out in my favour as well."  
  
"When? How!?" Gaster shouted and stood up.  
  
Dreemur snickered, "Whenever you left the lab, I would take the Echo flower that you were currently working on, separate the persona's, inject the bad persona with DETERMINATION, and throw the good persona into the Core, do-away with the unnecessary. And honestly, I'm either really good at hiding a mob of blood-thirsty Echo flowers, or you're just really bad at searching for said mob."  
  
"What did you plan on doing with them?" Gaster was almost as mad as Undyne had been when he was beating around the bush with his answers, though no one could be as mad as Undyne.  
  
"Why would I tell you that? It's like those books that I used to read from the human world, the 'bad guy' would tell the 'good guys' his plan and then they would escape and know how to stop the 'bad guy.' I'm sorry to interrupt your little escapade of we're-going-to-stop-you-from-doing-whatever-you're-doing-because-you're-the-antagonist, but playtime's over." Dreemur sneered at all of them, the look in his eyes screamed that he would like nothing better than to murder everyone in the room in front of him.  
  
"What do you mean by playtime?!" Undyne was the one to shout and stand up this time.  
  
Dreemur looked past Undyne and at Frisk, "I would very much like to see Chara again, for he and I have plenty that needs to be discussed."


	9. Chapter Nine: Not Proud of This One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Undertale, Undertale belongs to Tobyfox!

Frisk walked back into the room where everyone was being held, though he seemed different. Papyrus guessed that this was because he had just gotten his persona's ripped in half, but he wasn't too sure. Frisk held his head down so no one could see his face and he was stumbling over his own feet, like he wasn't used to walking; his skin seemed paler as well, and his hair a bit shorter.  
  
"Frisk!" Undyne jumped up and tackled Frisk into a hug once he stepped into the room, the door shutting and locking behind him. Papyrus was a bit wary of the entire situation, Frisk didn't seem like Frisk.  
  
He then saw why.  
  
"We heard you scream and we were so wor-" Undyne was cut off in the middle of her sentance, not by Frisk speaking, not by Frisk moving out of her hug, but by Frisk embedding a knife into Undyne's stomach.  
  
Everyone watched in horror as Frisk turned the knife and shoved it deeper into Undyne's stomach, a circle of red already soaking her shirt and dripping down onto the floor.  
  
"Fr-Frisk." Undyne coughed out. Frisk dragged the knife out of Undyne and pushed her backwards, letting her fall onto the floor. Papyrus moved to catch her. She fell into his arms and shattered in an instant, leaving Papyrus to grasp at air and the dust that was slowly falling to the floor.  
  
"Oh, you mean Pacifist? He's no longer here." the Frisk wannabe said with a smirk, licking a bit of the blood off of the knife he held in his hand.  
  
Tears had formed in Papyrus' eyes, he didn't know what to do, he felt numb and confused. Undyne had just been murdered by a Frisk look-alike. He didn't know what to do, he didn't know what to say.  
  
"Who-who are you?" Flowey asked after a moment. Papyrus heard his voice crack, he was probably crying.  
  
"Chara, nice to kill you." Chara said and looked up. His eyes were different from Frisk's, they were a dark contrast really, with black cornea's and red iris's. The smile he had on his face was evil, he took pleasure in the pain he had just caused, in the thought that the had just killed someone. And he had said everything so calmly, like he was asking someone where they wanted to go for lunch.  
  
"You're not Frisk. _What happened to Frisk?!"_ Papyrus yelled. He stood up and summoned some bones, they floated in mid-air, all aimed at Chara and ready to be fired in a second.  
  
"Pacifist? By now, he's probably headed to the Core to get thrown in, we don't need him anymore. You're about as much use to us as he was." Chara said, inspecting his knife and twirling it in his hand.  
  
"I- you- why?" Papyrus was not able to finish a sentence, no one could blame him, he was completely distraught, traumatized even.  
  
"It's all a part of our plan." Chara redirected his gaze towards Papyrus, "And you're not a part of it."  
  
{***}  
  
Chara walked out of the dust filled room a few minutes later, loving how the light glinted off the blood that stained his knife. He didn't understand how Pacifist didn't enjoy the rush that taking someone's life away gave, that feeling that you were in control of everything, that you had the power to destroy everything.  
  
Quite scary once you thought about it.  
  
{***}  
  
Frisk saw only two words in his field of vision: GAME OVER. The screen gave him an odd sense of déjà vu, like he had seen it multiple times before. Frisk shook his head, the text shaking with it, he didn't have any time to be thinking about déjà vu, he had to stop Dreemur, but how could he?  
  
Dreemur had explained everything to Frisk and Chara, his plan, his genocidal plan. He said that he wanted to carry out Chara's original plan, saying that now he saw it in all it's glory, saw it as a good plan and not a bad one.  
  
"I want to reset!" Frisk yelled to no one in particular, the words seeming to come out of nowhere, but he knew that they were the right ones to say. The déjà vu sense became stronger as the text in front of Frisk vanished and was replaced with darkness.  
  
The next thing that Frisk knew, he woke up in the LIBRARBY with Flowey beside him looking about ready to kill something.  
  
"The Echo flowers found us." Flowey said when Frisk didn't say anything for a couple of minutes. He already knew what the sound outside was, but was just too dumbfounded to think of words. He had lived this before, it was just like those other times when he was sure he died, but he opened his eyes at a place he was before. He was then able to counter what happened.  
  
_"I can save them."_ Frisk thought.


	10. Chapter Ten: Multiple Attempts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Undertale, Undertale belongs to Tobyfox.

"RUN!" Undyne yelled and stood up fast. She grabbed Frisk and booked it. Frisk was so caught up in his feeling of déjà vu that he wasn't able to grab Flowey in time. Frisk turned just in time to see Flowey struggling to keep up and then being swallowed by the mass of Echo flowers chasing them. He heard a piercing scream and was forced to turn around as he couldn't watch anymore. This was the first restart, barely ten minutes had gone past and he had already messed up.  
  
_"I have to save everyone."_ Frisk thought. He started struggling in Undyne's grasp as he tried to free himself.  
  
"Frisk! What are you doing?" Undyne practically screamed at him.  
  
"I have to save everyone!" Frisk replied before he got free from Undyne's hold on him.  
  
"What does that mean? _Frisk!"_ Undyne yelled as Frisk started running back towards the Echo flowers. The three of them hadn't been too far in front of them in the first place, so it didn't take long before Frisk was met with the wall of psycho flowers and the GAME OVER screen.  
  
Frisk woke up once again in the LIBRARBY with the many whispers that weren't Flowey. The Echo flowers were all over Snowdin if Frisk remembered correctly.  
  
From that point onwards, everything happend the same. Frisk was able to grab Flowey, the door appeared, the four of them happend upon the True Lab, and every other event played out as normal. Sadly, Frisk didn't know how to stop Dreemur from putting him in the persona separator and separating him from Chara. He was, however, able to escape from Dreemur and follow Chara.  
  
He saw his friends die, he saw Chara walk out of the room with blood glinting on his knife.  
  
"Oh, hey Pacifist!" Chara said gleefully when he noticed Frisk. "I thought that Dreemur threw you into the Core."  
  
Frisk was unable to answer, the images of his friends turning into dust was forever burned into his mind. The scene wouldn't stop playing itself over and over again in Frisk's brain.  
  
"Pacifist, you okay?" Chara asked walking towards Frisk with a playful grin. "You look a little pale." he twirled his knife, "I can help with that."  
  
Frisk felt a sharp pain on the left side of his chest. He stared into the eyes of Chara, they were glistening with joy as he watched Frisk slowly die as blood poured from his wound. Frisk felt extremely cold and was met, yet again, with the GAME OVER screen.  
  
So to say that Frisk was practically useless for the next two resets. For the first one, he was shaking so badly that he couldn't stand and was swamped by Echo flowers in the LIBRARBY, being stared at by the GAME OVER screen that seemed to judge him for not putting up a fight. The next restart went better, but Frisk resisted Chara's help in the Echo flower battle and got his lungs ripped out by an Echo flower.  
  
Flowey seemed to catch on after the seventh reset. When Frisk woke in the LIBRARBY, he was met with Flowey looking around with a look of confusion.  
  
"This is the seventh time I've seen this, this _exact_ thing." Flowey said, ignoring the imminent death that was looming right outside the door.  
  
"Yeah." Frisk replied getting up off the floor and taking a peek out the window. The Echo flowers were milling around Snowdin, passing whispers from one to another. They hadn't noticed neither him nor Flowey yet, so as long as they didn't make a big ruckus, then everything would be fine. Maybe Papyrus and Undyne could deal with them?  
  
"Frisk, what have you been doing?" Flowey asked when Frisk sat down again. His voice was barely above a whisper as he tried to figure out what Frisk was up to.  
  
"I've been trying to save everyone." Frisk explained. "If I don't do everything correctly in one shot, then everyone will die. It's happened seven times." Frisk knew that he had paled when he brought the memories back up. He had seen it multiple times, yet he knew that he would never get used to the sight; he never _wanted_ to get used to the sight.  
  
Flowey seemed to remember what Frisk was talking about. "That's not you entering the room, is it?" he asked.  
  
Frisk shook his head, "He's not me. He may look like me, but he's not me."  
  
The sounds of battle interrupted the conversation that they were having. Frisk peeked through the window again and found that Undyne and Papyrus were taking on the Echo flowers with great ease. Maybe not fighting any Echo flowers could help this entire situation.  
  
_"Pacifist, that's not going to work. I'm still here, I've always been here, and I'll always be here."_ Chara's voice resonated in Frisk's head. _"You know, until Asriel Dreemur separates us. Why do you keep resetting? The plan works out great every time, then everything resets and back here."_  
  
"Frisk?" Flowey asked quietly. Papyrus and Undyne were still fighting outside, the number of Echo flowers seemed to be decreasing, though Frisk knew that they would rise soon and there would be twice as many.  
  
"Chara keeps speaking to me." Frisk admitted quietly. He might as well not keep anything a secret.  
  
"Who's Chara?"  
  
"The other persona." Frisk answered briskly. Flowey nodded and said nothing. Frisk waited until nearly all the Echo flowers were gone before heading out of the LIBRARBY to greet his two friends.  
  
The reunion went normal, Undyne questioned Flowey, Papyrus warned Undyne of the rising Echo flowers, the four of them ran, Papyrus found the door, _ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom_ , they were all trapped in the room with Dreemur smiling at them.  
  
"I would very much like to see Chara again, for he and I have plenty that needs to be discussed." Dreemur said. Despite everyone's protests, Frisk's included, Dreemur forced Frisk out of the room and marched him down the hallway and to the persona separator.  
  
Dreemur forced Frisk into the chair and went to turn the machine on. Frisk took this opportunity to attack Dreemur. He had to figure out what things worked and what things didn't. Trial and error was the only way to go in this, though sadly error was very painful and traumatizing.  
  
Frisk quietly stood and grabbed out his frying pan. Wasting no time, he whacked Dreemur with the thing then backed up to avoid any whipping around that might happen. Nothing of that sort did happen as Dreemur just slowly stood up straight and turned around to meet Frisk's eyes.  
  
Frisk remembered fighting Dreemur six months ago, how many healing items he had to use just to stay alive. He remembered the attacks, he remembered how to (somewhat) dodge them. The only thing different about this situation was that Frisk was going to FIGHT, not ACT. That and Dreemur seemed very angry.  
  
"Frisk," he said in a low voice, "All I want to do is have a small chat with my friend, Chara. Nothing more, nothing less, though, my chat will never happen if you don't comply."  
  
"I'm not going to comply. I know what you're planning, I know what you're going to do. I'm not going to let that happen!" Frisk's voice didn't waver as he said that. He was surprised as he expected it to be shaking.  
  
Something in Dreemur seemed to snap. He turned around fully and summoned an attack. "You don't know anything." he said as he unleashed his attack: Chaos Blaster.  
  
Frisk managed to dodge his attacks, barely. His HP had dropped from twenty down to three and the battle didn't seem to be turning in his favour any time soon. Frisk had no healing items, so he had no choice but to attack. He barely made a dent in Dreemur's health when he whacked him.  
  
"You call _that_ an attack Frisk?" Dreemur asked and unleashed Hyper Goner.  
  
With his HP at one, Frisk felt like he was going to pass out. Dark patches covered his vision as he ran in for another attack. Dreemur easily dodged and grabbed Frisk and lifted him up by his neck. Frisk dropped his frying pan as he clutched Dreemur's wrist, his legs kicking at the air to find footing.  
  
"Not so high and mighty now, are you?" Dreemur asked and threw Frisk back into the persona separator. The air got knocked out of Frisk's lungs and he couldn't move as he tried to remember how to breathe. During this time, Dreemur turned on the machine and a blinding white light took over Frisk's vision along with crippling pain that felt like it was ripping his cells apart.  
  
Once his vision cleared, he saw Chara exit the room, perfectly fine. Frisk got out of his chair and felt his knees buckle beneath him. He struggled to his feet and started slowly chasing after Chara, hoping that Flowey remembered what Frisk had told him in the LIBRARBY.  
  
{***}  
  
When Frisk walked into the room, Flowey had to remind himself that it was not Frisk, but Chara. He didn't fully understand the situation, though he knew that he had to act fast before Chara killed everyone. Even though Flowey remembered the LIBRARBY seven times, he did not remember what events transpired after Frisk was forced from them by Dreemur.  
  
"Undyne! No!" Flowey yelled when Undyne went to hug Chara.  
  
"What's wrong Flowey?" Undyne asked, stopping in her tracks and looking back at Flowey.  
  
"That's not Frisk!"  
  
"What do you mean it's not Frisk?"  
  
"He's Chara, Frisk's bad persona! Get away before he kills you!" Flowey warned. Undyne, Papyrus, and Gaster backed up to the back wall where Flowey was situated.  
  
"Huh, I see that you're smart, little flower. I see that Pacifist explained everything quite well to you. But what about your friends?" Chara asked, dropping the Frisk façade and pulling out his knife.  
  
"Care to explain?" Papyrus asked.  
  
"He's not Frisk, but Frisk might be in the clutches of Dreemur, so we have to get there soon." Flowey explained quickly as Chara started smiling creepily.  
  
"I'll look for Frisk, you three cover me." Undyne said. She then summoned a spear and threw it at Chara. He dodged to the left and gave Undyne enough of an opening to leave the room to go find Frisk. Flowey, Papyrus, and Gaster were now left to deal with the monster in front of them.  
  
{***}  
  
Undyne found Frisk stumbling down the hallway leading to the room where Papyrus, Flowey, and Gaster were fighting Gaster. He didn't look well, his skin pale and multiple cuts lay bleeding on differnt parts of his body. He also seemed to be in lots of pain and close to passing out; Undyne guessed that he was close to dying.  
  
"Frisk." Undyne slowly approached Frisk and knelt down in fron of him. He had stopped moving when Undyne spoke, his pained ones meeting hers.  
  
"What do I have for items?" Undyne asked herself as she held Frisk steady with one hand on his shoulder, while her other hand looked through her inventory for a healing item. She came upon some Spider Cider that Muffet had given her as a leftover from the Spider Bake Sale that she held up on the Surface.  
  
"Drink this." Undyne commanded. She held out the Spider Cider to Frisk who took gulps of it. His colour returned and the scratches that layered his body healed as if by magic.  
  
"Better? You're not dying?" Undyne asked after a few moments. Frisk nodded and Undyne stood up.  
  
"So, what's that in there?" Undyne asked looking back towards the room.  
  
"Chara, my bad persona. Undyne, they're planning to kill everyone!" Frisk exclaimed, tears welling up in his eyes.  
  
"Then we'll just stop them then." Undyne smiled at Frisk, "You know you're talking to a true heroine."  
  
"I knew you wouldn't get far, Frisk." Dreemur's voice said from behind them. Undyne and Frisk whipped around just in time to unleash a Galactica Blazing.  
  
Undyne, who dodged out of the way in time, got to see Frisk, who didn't dodge in time, get ripped to shreds and bleed out in front of her. Frisk was met with yet another GAME OVER screen.  
  
"This is really getting annoying." he murmured to himself as he made yet another reset.  
  
{***{  
  
"How many times is this?" Flowey asked in the LIBRARBY after another reset had been initiated.  
  
"I think about twenty-eight." Frisk sighed. He was getting very annoyed at this point. They kept messing up little things every time. Once they ran past Gaster's door, another time Flowey got too close to Chara, or Papyrus got too close to Chara, or Gaster.  
  
"I hope that we get this one right." Flowey commented and slouched against the wall. They had decided that the best course of action for getting rid of the Echo flowers outside was to let Undyne and Papyrus take care of them.  
  
"Here's hoping." Frisk said and leaned his head back. His DETERMINATION was wearing thin, he could feel it. He didn't know how many more times he could watch all of this happen, watch his friends die, feel the pain of dying himself.  
  
"Stay DETERMINED, Frisk." Flowey said.  
  
Frisk looked at him with a questioning look, "Hmm?"  
  
"You look like you're about ready to give up. Don't give up." Flowey explained.  
  
"I just don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to see everyone die, I don't want to feel myself die." Frisk put his forehead against his knees and shut his eyes. He just wanted this to be over, for this reset to go correctly, even by dumb luck, he didn't care, as long as everyone survived, then he didn't care how everything turned out.  
  
"You're the only one able to do this, Frisk." Flowey said. "I would just attempt to save myself. I know it sounds horrible, but after all these resets, I would just want this to end, regardless of who survived and who died."  
  
"Well, I do want this to be over, but I want everyone to survive. You, Undyne, Papyrus, Gaster, myself." Frisk looked over at Flowey. They both wanted this to be over, though they wanted different outcomes.  
  
The telltale signs of battle sounded from outside. "Looks like they're here." Frisk said and peeked out the window. He saw the same sight of Undyne and Papyrus fighting the Echo flowers with the same ease.  
  
Everything seemed the same, except something felt off. Frisk wasn't too sure what it was, but it was like something that wasn't supposed to be there was there.  
  
"Does something feel... off to you?" Frisk asked and sat back down.  
  
Flowey nodded, "I don't know what though." Flowey commented.  
  
Suddenly, a large crash was heard from outside. Frisk jumped up and saw Sans out there fighting with a confused looking Undyne and Papyrus.  
  
"Sans is out there." Frisk said. He was confused, did Sans also have the reset power? How did he get down here so quickly?  
  
"Sans? Why is he here?" Flowey asked. He was as confused as everyone else.  
  
"Maybe this is a turning point?" Frisk suggested, shrugging. He hoped that the end of this was near, now that Sans was here, maybe things would turn out.  
  
But that also meant that there was one more person that he couldn't let die.  
  
{***}  
  
Everything went the same, exactly the same, with the exception that Sans was now there. Once the Echo flowers were gone, Sans explained why he was there, even though his explanation was clearly a lie. He said that he had followed Undyne and Papyrus into the Underground to see what happend to Frisk because he was worried about his friend.  
  
Flowey and Frisk knew that he _had_ to be lying. There was no other explanation as to why he hadn't shown up in all the other resets. Even _if_ Sans had the power to reset, he would've came out and helped them before. Somethings just didn't add up.  
  
{***}  
  
"Everyone, go find Frisk, I can take care of this one." Sans commanded. Chara had just walked into the room and Flowey had told everyone to get back.  
  
"Sans, no. I, the great Papyrus, will stay back an help you." Papyrus said.  
  
Sans couldn't help but give a small chuckle, "Thanks bro, but, I got this one."  
  
Everyone left after that with no more complaints. Once Sans knew that him and Chara were alone, he let his eye go blue.  
  
"I haven't seen you in a while, Chara."  
  
"Same to you, Sans. I didn't think that I would have the pleasure of killing you again." Chara smiled, his knife glinting in the faint light of the True Lab.  
  
"And I never thought that I would have to stop you again. Especially after Frisk went through and saved everyone." Sans snickered and summoned his Gaster Blasters.  
  
"Round two?" Chara asked and got ready to attack.  
  
"I'm not letting you hurt my friends again." Sans said and unleashed his first attack.  
  
Chara dodged with experienced ease, though Sans added another Gaster Blaster to his attack before it finished. That surprised Chara and he managed to dent his health.  
  
"I see you're mixing it up." Chara said and wiped a bit of blood off his arm. "I hope you're not expecting me to be the same either." Chara ran forward and swiped at Sans. He was able to dodge, but almost got hit as Chara stabbed at him a second time.  
  
"I'm not letting you hurt my friends." Sans said when Chara went back to his original place. "I will defeat you, no matter how many resets that takes."  
  
"Oh, but you're not able to control the resets, Pacifist controls those. He wants to make sure that everyone lives or something stupid like that." Chara inspected his knife, "I mean, why doesn't he just let anyone who dies, die? He's going to be here forever if he wants to save everyone."  
  
"He does that because he's a good person." Sans defended. He thought back to all the good times he had with Frisk, all the happy memories that they shared. He thought of his friends, his brother, his dad. He wanted to make sure that everyone lived as wel, he didn't want anyone to be left behind, he didn't want anyone to die.  
  
"Oh, I know that Pacifist is a good person, that's why he's a Pacifist. He doesn't want anyone to die, he's bent on making everyone happy, yadda-yadda, blah-blah-blah." Chara stopped looking at his knife and looked at Sans instead, his eyes glistening with a murderous intent, "I mean, people and monsters alike are just too hard to deal with, why not just murder them instead?!"  
  
Sans unleashed another attack, hoping to end this fight quick. He knew that it Chara got one hit in on him, he would be a goner. Chara dodged, a laugh coming from his mouth as he did so. Sans knew that this fight wouldn't end soon, Chara was in the zone.  
  
{***}  
  
"Frisk!" Undyne yelled and ran up to Frisk. Frisk stopped walking and stared at the group coming towards him. It wasn't just Undyne this time, but Papyrus, Gaster, and Flowey as well. Frisk guessed that Sans stayed behind to fight Chara.  
  
_"Please be okay."_ Frisk thought once everyone reached him. Undyne gave him the Spider Cider so that he wouldn't die, and asked him if he was good.  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine. But we should probably move fast. I don't know where Dreemur is." Frisk said, trying to not give away the fact that he knew that Dreemur was going to be there in about ten seconds. He couldn't let anyone else know about the reset abilities. He wasn't too sure why, but he just felt like it was a secret that he had to keep.  
  
"I knew you wouldn't be able to go far, Frisk." Dreemur came around the corner and looked at the group. Everyone summoned an attack once they saw Dreemur. They knew that he presented a threat, though Frisk highly doubted that they knew just how much of a threat that that was.  
  
"You're not hurting Frisk anymore!" Undyne yelled at him, spears in the air above her, ready to be thrown.  
  
_"This is different."_ Frisk thought. _"It's probably because not just Undyne's here."_  
  
"But he presents no more use to us. I separated Chara from him and now he's just a roadblock to our plan. Same as every one of you." Dreemur sneered and summoned a Galactica Blazing.  
  
"What _is_ your plan exactly?" Gaster asked him.  
  
"Genocide." Dreemur said and unleashed his Galactica Blazing. Thankfully, everyone was able to dodge with varying degrees of success. The good this was, no one was dead.  
  
"Why? Why do you want to commit genocide?" Gaster asked.  
  
"It was Chara's plan since the beginning." Dreemur said.  
  
Frisk suddenly turned and ran to help Sans.  
  
{***}  
  
Sans was breathing heavy. So far, he had been able to dwindle Chara's health so that he was just a hit or two away from dying. Sans was very tired, he wasn't used to this much exercise. He knew better than to try and sleep, Chara wouldn't allow that. Things would turn out like they had last time, Sans couldn't allow that.  
  
Sans had hoped that Chara would be tiring out by now, though he was bouncing from foot to foot, like he had excess energy that needed to be burned off.  
  
"How do you still have so much energy?" Sans asked.  
  
Chara just simply smiled at him, "How can you be so tired already? We've been fighting for ten minutes, tops."  
  
Chara had a point, although they had been fighting for a short time, the fight itself was very intense. Turn after turn without a break. There was no more talking, just attacking and dodging. Chara didn't even take turns to heal, so he either didn't have any healing items, or he just wanted to try and kill Sans more than he needed to heal.  
  
"You're not going to do your _special attack_ again, are you? You know how well that went last time." Chara smiled.  
  
"Yeah, I know." Sans breathed out. "I'm not planning on doing that, I'm just catching my breath."  
  
"Can I attack? I don't want to just stand here."  
  
"It's my turn, you're not supposed to attack."  
  
"But I'm bored!" Chara whined. Even though he was planning mass genocide, he still acted like a kid. Sans sat down as to catch his breath better. He knew that when he attacked, Chara would be right in his face trying to kill him as soon as his attack was over. Even if he had enough energy to attack, he knew that he wouldn't have the reflexes to dodge.  
  
After a few minutes, Sans saw Chara raise his knife. He threw a bone and hit it out of his hand. It clattered to the floor a couple feet away, near the door.  
  
"That counts as an attack!" Chara said gleefully. Sans expected Chara to rush and grab his knife, but he produced another one from seemingly nowhere.  
  
Sans got up and felt the energy that he had regained drain out of him. He knew that he couldn't dodge an attack like this, he would be too slow. Chara would swipe and catch him up the chest. He would die after one slash.  
  
"This is it, Sans!" Chara slowly walked towards Sans, knife making random patterns in the air in front of him.  
  
_"This is it."_ Sans thought, _"The end."_  
  
Chara was standing in front of him now, knife raised, "Say goodby-" his sentence was cut short by the knife that was now protruding out of his stomach.  
  
{***}  
  
Frisk ran back to the room. He knew that Sans was in danger, he felt it. He didn't know how he knew, he didn't know how he felt it, but it was like a chill came across him, like sins that he didn't commit were crawling on his back.  
  
He slowed to a silent walk as he approached the room. He heard a clatter and a shout of, "That counted as an attack!" Frisk peeked into the room and saw Sans get up off the floor. He seemed to have no energy left. Chara approached him, playing with his knife and making random patterns in the air in front of him.  
  
"This is it, Sans!" Chara said gleefully. Frisk knew that he needed to act fast, or else Sans would surely die. He walked into the room and a glinting caught his eye. It was a knife, Chara's knife.  
  
Suddenly, an idea washed over Frisk, an idea that he didn't like, but an idea that he though was the best way to deal with this situation.  
  
He grabbed the knife off of the ground and rushed up behind Chara, like he had seen him do many times before.  
  
"Say goodby-" Chara's sentace was cut off as Frisk embedded the knife deep into Chara's back.  
  
Chara was as still as a statue, unmoving as a trickle of blood left dripped down from the corner of his mouth. His shirt was getting a growing circle of blood soaked into it from his wound. Frisk pulled the knife out of Chara's back with some difficulty, but finally got it out and threw it across the room. Chara's knees buckled beneath him and he fell to the floor.  
  
Sans quickly pulled a yellow star out of his pocket and gave it to Frisk. He suddenly felt a rush of hope and DETERMINATION as everything around him became brighter.  
  
_"Knowing that you only have one enemy left fills you with DETERMINATION."_ a voice from somewhere said. Frisk knew what this was, a save point.  
  
"There we go." Sans said and stuffed the star back in his pocket once everything saved.  
  
"Are you okay Sans?" Frisk asked.  
  
"Fine, just tired. That Chara there fights with an intent to kill." Sans said and sat down again. "Why are you here? I thought that you were with everyone else."  
  
"I thought you were in danger, so I came to help." Frisk explained. "I don't know how I knew, but I'm glad that I came back."  
  
Sans pulled Frisk into a hug as tears started falling from his eyes. "It's okay kid, I'm okay, you're okay, everyone's safe."  
  
"We could've lost you, Sans!" Frisk cried into Sans' shoulder. All the stress and fear from all the resets just came out in the form of tears.  
  
"If I died, you would've just reset everything, right?" Sans asked, patting the back of Frisk's head.  
  
"I don't want to reset anymore." Frisk murmured.  
  
"Then let's finish this."


	11. Chapter Eleven: The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Undertale, Undertale belongs to Tobyfox.  
> This is also up on Fanfiction.net under the same name!

They all stood in front of the grave, mourning the loss of their friend as thunder boomed in the distance. No one looked up when the loud sound cut through the quiet air like a knife. No birds sang, no wind blew through the trees, no water trickled down the nearby stream, they heard nothing, felt nothing.  
  
They were numb. Numb after witnessing what they did, having their friend die in front of them with nothing that they could do. It was all too late by the time that Sans and Frisk showed up, their friend had already turned to dust, their heart had already shattered. No one could do anything but stand and stare, some dropping to their knees as their legs couldn't hold up their weight any longer. Even Dreemur stopped for a second, but that was only to relish in the despair that shone in everyone's eyes, to smirk and get ready to kill every last one of them.  
  
Sans knew that he did something, though he wasn't too sure what. After he saw the dust of his friend, of his own brother, he didn't remember much. From what Frisk was able to tell him, Sans had gone into a rage, pointing many Gaster Blasters at Dreemur and unleashed them in a howling rage of grief.  
  
Sans didn't remember attacking, the only thoughts that occupied that point in time were memories of Papyrus. Happy memories that should bring a smile to his face, but now only bring tears to his eyes and a heavy feeling to his heart.  
  
"Sans," Frisk's voice quietly pierced through his thoughts as he came back to reality. He looked around and saw that Frisk and Flowey were the only ones still left at the grave. Everyone else must've left a while ago due to the storm getting closer and closer.  
  
Sans put an arm around Frisk's shoulder and pulled him close. He knew that the passing of Papyrus was hitting Frisk just as hard as it was hitting him. They had been best friends, as close as brothers, those six or so months that Frisk had spent making a lasting friendship with Papyrus produced a bond that took everyone else years upon years to create.  
  
Sans felt himself tearing up again at the mere thought of his brother. He peered down at Frisk who looked lost in sobbing, his head low, dripping salty tears onto Flowey's leafs. Flowey also had his head down in silent mourning. Sans knew that Flowey and Papyrus didn't have a strong bond, maybe even no bond, but he also knew that Flowey was sad at Papyrus' passing. He was a shining part in everyone's life, a light that was snuffed out to save another.  
  
{***}  
  
Undyne knew that they were losing the fight, everyone had taken quite a few hits that didn't quite match the amount of times that they had been able to hit Dreemur. He really seemed to like using Galactica Blazing, probably because he was easily able to hit in a very large attack radius and hit everyone.  
  
Dreemur finally stopped attacking, allowing for everyone to regroup for a couple of seconds.  
  
"Everyone need any healing items?" Undyne asked around her. That was a very stupid question, _everyone_ needed healing items, but she didn't have very many to go around and, to her knowledge, no one else had any. Undyne knew that she only had two Spider Cider's left, then they would be on their own.  
  
"Attack!" she yelled as she threw her spear at Dreemur. Everyone followed in suit, Flowey wrapping Dreemur in some spikey vines and squeezed, Papyrus throwing some bones and hitting Dreemur in the face, and Gaster launching a green fireball at him. They had probably hit for a minimum of three-hundred HP, but Dreemur didn't seem exhausted in the slightest, the only signs of damage that were showing was the large cut on his right cheek that was slowly dripping blood down his face.  
  
"Pitiful, really." Dreemur glowered at the group in front of him. Undyne felt everyone tense up around her, prepared to dodge Dreemur's next attack. Maybe if Frisk and Sans were here, then they could do some more damage to Dreemur and get the fight over and done with quicker.  
  
"Pitiful?" Papyrus spoke up, a bone in his hand as he waved it in Dreemur's direction. "What do you mean by that?"  
  
"Your attacks," Dreemur elaborated, "They're pitiful. Chara could do more damage with one swing that all four of you combined." That statement earned Dreemur a bone chucked at his face by none other than Papyrus.  
  
"The strength of all four of us attacking will eventually bring you to your knees!" Papyrus summoned another bone, preparing to throw it at Dreemur. Everything was dead silent for a second, two seconds, almost an entire minute, until Dreemur let out a snicker, a second later, the snicker that he was sporting turned into a full on laugh. Undyne was confused, why was he laughing? Papyrus had spoken the truth, it might take them a bit, but they would eventually defeat Dreemur and then get the Hell out of the Underground.  
  
"That's cute." Dreemur managed to gasp out between laughs.  
  
"Who're you calling cute?" Flowey snapped at him.  
  
"I would like to inform all of you," Dreemur said, starting to regain control over his laughing, "that I have only been using a small portion of my actual strength, just to see how things play out."  
  
Undyne felt her blood run cold. He had been toying with them the entire time then, while they had been fighting their hardest, Dreemur was playing with toys.  
  
"Oh, don't give me that face, you must've figured it out by now, right?" Dreemur looked at them, something shining in his eyes that Undyne couldn't place. "I wish to end this fight quickly so that I can go about my plan involving the Surface. I would go now, but I don't want you lot following me and proving to be a nuisance."  
  
"We'll defeat you, you monster!" Undyne yelled at him, summoning another spear.  
  
"Lookie here, who's calling _who_ a monster?" Dreemur smirked and unleashed an attack. Orbs started flying past Undyne and at Dreemur, but they didn't seem to be damaging him. Some of the orbs flew towards them in clusters, others travelling alone as they made their way to Dreemur.  
  
Papyrus seemed to have a hard time dodging the orbs as they made their way past him. He looked more ragged than before, sporting many places around his body where parts of his bones were broken off. It was when Papyrus wasn't able to dodge an orb that hit the lower portion of his leg that Undyne saw tragedy strike.  
  
The lower portion of Papyrus' left leg got torn off and he suddenly lost his balance, landing on the ground as more orbs raced past him, some striking him, causing more damage than before. Papyrus struggled to get up, but that was proving difficult on his one still-intact leg and the orbs brushing up against him every five seconds.  
  
It was then, when Papyrus had lost his balance and face-planted on the floor again, that a cluster of orbs was racing straight at his face. Undyne didn't even have time to yell at him to get out of the way before the orbs connected with his body.  
  
Everything happened in slow motion, at least, that was what Undyne was experiencing. Once the orbs connected with Papyrus, a strangled cry of pain was barely heard over the sound of the orbs rushing past everything at a high speed. One orb crashed straight through Papyrus' chest, leaving a large whole in it's wake. Another took off a large portion of his head, leaving him falling apart at the seams. One of his arms fell off, clattering to the floor, turing into dust on contact.  
  
The cluster had passed and Undyne found herself running over to Papyrus, the orbs rushing past her were slowing and becoming fewer an fewer as Dreemur seemed to have finished his attack. Not before the aforementioned tragedy struck.  
  
One last orb came flying out of nowhere before Undyne was even halfway to Papyrus. The orb made contact with what was left of Papyrus' head.  
  
He turned to dust not a moment afterwards. His heart appeared, floating above the pile of dust as if saying, _"There's still hope, you can still help me!"_ His heart shook and flew away a second after that. All that was left was the pile of dust and Papyrus' red scarf.  
  
Undyne felt her knees give out from under her, her vision becoming blurry. Papyrus was... no... it couldn't be. Her friend, her dear friend that she made spaghetti with, that she trained with, that she went on adventures with... gone? Just like that?  
  
Suddenly, the dreary setting of the True Lab lit up for a second, giving Undyne a small sense of hope, of determination, even after all that happened. That small sense of hope and the somewhat lighter setting vanished as soon as it came. Undyne knew that she had experienced that before, though she was never truely sure what it was or what it meant.  
  
"He's..." Undyne heard Gaster choke out. She felt hot, angry tears running down her face at this point. She felt numb, she didn't know what to do, what she _could_ do after experiencing that.  
  
"One down, three to go." Dreemur said with a tone that sounded something along the lines of glee. Undyne didn't really remember to tell him that Sans and Frisk were still fighting Chara and that they had a high probability of winning, all that was on her mind was the scene of Papyrus turning into dust and his heart flying away.  
  
{***}  
  
Frisk stared at the scene in front of him with a heavy feeling in his heart and tears running down his face. Undyne was kneeling not even five feet away from a pile of dust with tears streaming down her face, Gaster and Flowey following in suit with the same shocked expressions and deflated-looking stances. Dreemur, on the other hand, was looking at Frisk and Sans in disgust, murmuring something about Chara not being able to do his job and failing him.  
  
"So, now I have to deal with the rest of these _vermin_ by myself."  
  
_"Reset."_  
  
"One down, five more to go."  
  
_"Reset, please."_  
  
"Well, they'll all be easy to take care of now. Kill one of them, kill all of them."  
  
_"Please, let me reset."_ Frisk didn't know how to react so he just stood there, tears streaming down his face and his shoulders shaking in silent sobs.  
  
"I _did this."_ he thought, "I _saved, __ _I __ _could have prevented this._ I _killed Papyrus." _____  
  
{***}  
  
"Frisk, I know that you're still having those thoughts." Sans walked up to Frisk who was sitting in front of Papyrus' grave. It was only a day after their funeral for him, three days after they had emerged from the Underground, broken, beaten, numb.  
  
"It's my fault. I saved, if I didn't, I could've... He would've..." Frisk didn't finish his sentence as Sans sat down beside him. Frisk wasn't too sure why Sans didn't hate his guts, he had killed his brother.  
  
They sat in silence for a while, all the sounds that had vanished the other day were back again, the birds happily chirping on the trees that were swaying in the breeze. The nearby stream trickled past, emitting a peaceful setting that was supposed to be full of happiness, of hope. Everything was ruined by the little bubble of sadness around Papyrus' grave. The bubble seemed to stretch wherever Frisk went, always being constantly reminded of the only mistake that had ever come from saving.  
  
"It's not your fault, you know?" Sans finally said. His voice seemed surprisingly steady for what he must be feeling at that moment.  
  
"No," Frisk pulled his knees up to his chest, "It _is_ my fault. _I_ saved, _I_ could have prevented all this."  
  
"Who gave you the save state?" Sans asked, giving Frisk a sideways glance as he stared at his brother's grave. Frisk didn't say anything. Yes, Sans had given him the save state, but he had used it.  
  
"It's still my-"  
  
"Stop that!" Sans snapped, "It's just as much my fault as it is yours, so _stop blaming yourself!"_  
  
Frisk sat in silence as he looked at Sans, stunned that he would say something like that, stunned that Sans also blamed himself for his brother's death.  
  
"Look," Sans said after a few moments passed in silence, "That's in the past, we didn't know. The only thing that we were thinking about was making sure that Chara didn't come back."  
  
"I guess so."  
  
{***}  
  
"Sans! Sans! He's dead, Sans! Stop!" voices urged Sans to stop, though he wasn't exactly too sure what he was supposed to stop, he wasn't doing anything. After a few moments, Sans heard a yelp, a scream if you will, of someone that sounded like Frisk.  
  
"SANS! STOP!" the voice was clear, a mad Undyne. Sans came back to his senses to find that he had his Gaster Blasters out, pointing both them and some bones at a pile of dust in front of him. The pile of dust was close to gone by now, disintegrated by all of Sans' attacking.  
  
He turned towards the sound of someone regaining some health. He saw Frisk sitting up against the wall, part of his shirt was soaked in blood with a hole ripped in it that was about the size of one of Sans' attacks. Did he accidently attack Frisk?  
  
{***}  
  
"Are you still hurting?" Sans asked after another few moments lapsed in silence.  
  
Frisk shook his head, "No, the Spider Cider that Undyne was able to give me helped." Frisk rubbed the spot where the attack had stabbed him.  
  
"I'm really sorry about that."  
  
"No harm done."  
  
"I could've killed you."  
  
"Everything would've reset back to where we saved." Frisk finished.  
  
{***}  
  
Everyone stumbled out of the Underground as the numb feeling fully set in. Thankfully Flowey had been able to find a kind of container that they were able to put Papyrus' dust in so that they could take his remains with them. Sans took his scarf when they were putting Papyrus' remains into the container, and put the scarf around Frisk's neck, causing him to erupt into another sobbing fit, which everyone joined in on.  
  
Everyone stumbled out but Gaster, he couldn't leave the Underground for some reason or another. They couldn't get him to at least try to leave the Underground as he vanished as soon as they emerged from the True Lab.  
  
The way to the exit had been horrible. Everywhere they looked, there was a reminder of Papyrus in some way or another. Everyone just looked at their feet the entire rest of the way, Sans clutching the container filled with the last tether to his brother close to him. Frisk had Flowey in a hug the entire way as he tried not to break down into the sobbing mess that he had been back in the True Lab.  
  
They all walked close together, not wanting to be separated, not wanting the feeling of loneliness combined with the numb-loss feeling that was dominating their hearts the entire way. They hadn't run into any Echo flowers since the True Lab, maybe they had vanished, or maybe they were just in the other parts of the Underground.  
  
{***}  
  
Staring at the broken barrier, Papyrus smiled to himself. Every now and then, Frisk would come back into the Underground and just start walking around. Papyrus would always follow him, listening to what Frisk had to say. Frisk had told him about his own funeral and how everyone was coping. He told Papyrus that he blamed himself for his death and that Sans did to. He told Papyrus why he was wearing his scarf and that he would never forget him.  
  
After a few months, Frisk started coming in with happier stories, like how he and Undyne had finally made spaghetti without burning her house down. Or how Mettaton had become a star on the Surface, getting large acting roles in movies, even getting his own show.  
  
"One thing that I don't get though," Frisk said one day. He was sitting down in Snowdin, just outside Grillby's and just talking, like he did when he thought that Papyrus was there.  
  
"I don't get why your heart didn't shatter." Frisk explained. "From what Undyne told me, your heart didn't shatter, it just flew away." Frisk held onto the scarf that he had inherited from Papyrus. "That's not what's supposed to happen, what's that supposed to mean? Are you still there? I thought that a monster's soul couldn't exist after they died."  
  
"How does that explain me?" Gaster appeared suddenly, startling Frisk and causing him to scootch away.  
  
"Gaster?" Frisk asked, confused. "So, you didn't just vanish."  
  
"No, what I did was I helped my son stay in this world, guided his soul back to the Underground where it lingers, not able to be seen, but he's able to see and hear you." Gaster explained, stealing a quick glance in Papyrus' direction.  
  
"What?" Frisk was more confused than ever now. What was going on?  
  
"Let's just say that I've got things under control, okay?"  
  
'END'


End file.
